1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image data management system to be installed in a hospital.
2. Discussion of Background
In modern hospitals increasingly sophisticated digital imaging systems are being produced for and purchased by diagnostic radiology departments. Department space limitations frequently result in the geographic separation of these imaging systems to various floors or even buildings within a medical center. Additionally, the referring clinical staff have become more knowledgeable and more demanding in their diagnostic requests. These various factors have increased the need for an image information data management system that can:
(a) produce analog and/or digital images from various diagnostic technologies,
(b) collate and/or integrate image information from multiple diagnostic technologies,
(c) store digital diagnostic images, and
(d) retrieve digital diagnostic images.
So there arises a need to store, collect, retrieve, display, process and treat images formed at the various modalities of the hospital, such as X-ray film images, X-CT (computed tomography) images, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) images, RI(radioisotope) pictures, CR (computed radiography) images, US (ultrasound) images, endoscope pictures, and thermography images. Efforts to fulfill this need originated with the Picture Archiving & Communication System (hereinafter called PACS) for university hospitals, an experimental digital picture transmission system developed at Kansas University. Here, retrieval at 10 Mbits/sec was carried out in the Local Area Network of (hereinafter called LAN) of approximately 800 Mbytes of digital picture data formed each day. A technique to increase the picture transmission efficiency was produced to a state to be handed over to other universities. The field has advanced to a point where a perspective on image transmission, propriety of CRT diagnosis and large-capacity data archiving and retrieval have begun to be realized.